This blog uncovers the top 15 Bollywood movies that are “strongly inspired” or we can say effortlessly copied from Hollywood.
Bollywood had made several films copied from Hollywood or other film industries across the globe; reasons may vary but the Bollywood representations of the original movies give them a new and wider angle.
Taking inspiration or getting influenced by the plot of a foreign film is one thing, but mimeographing it akin is something Bollywood must not be proud of, on the contrary, we, as in Indian audiences or many of the foreign ones too had enjoyed the replication more than the original movies.
However, if ignore the fact that Bollywood had produced some of the legendary movies that were duplicated from Hollywood, then we can see that some of the talented actors of Bollywood are nothing short of the perfect artists.
Many of us have seen and liked the Bollywood movies that we don’t know are copied from Hollywood. Some remakes won admiration while some failed badly.
Whatever the case was but shout out to the actors who agree to do the remakes out of the quality of the script and their passion to enact the adaptation of the iconic Hollywood movies.
So, let me introduce you to some of the iconic Bollywood movies which were borrowed from Hollywood. Let’s start with the newest in news.
15 Bollywood Movies Copied From Hollywood
1. The Intern (2015) – The Intern (Yet To Be Released)
The iconic duo Robert De Nero and Anne Hathaway’s movie The Intern was released in 2015 showing the amalgamation of two passionate workaholics and their similar yet different life stories as well as their outlook on life.
Robert plays the character of the 70-year-old, who finds purpose yet again after retirement in a fashion company as an Intern for a self-made girl in her mid-30s, who happens to be the owner of the company.
The crossover of two passionate people from different eras is fun to watch and a lot to learn. The genre of this Hollywood movie was Comedy Drama. The original movie set the bar high.
Bollywood being Bollywood couldn’t hold itself but made the remake of this movie under a similar name, the plot even the font and design of the movie name are similar.
The Bollywood remake of “The Intern” was about to release in the year 2021 but for some unknown reasons, the movie is not out yet. The Bollywood remake starred Deepika Padukone in the place of Anne Hathaway and Rishi Kapoor in the place of Robert De Nero.
Maybe due to the unfortunate demise of Rishi Kapoor and the Covid-19 conditions, the movie didn’t release, but we already know what the movie is all about and just waiting to judge the Bollywood representation of the Hollywood original.
2. The Girl On The Train (2016) – The Girl On The Train (2021)
The Thriller/Mystery Hollywood movie The Girl on the Train was released in 2016. Emily Blunt had done a marvelous job in playing the character of the mysterious lead Rachel who has a condition of drinking and blackout.
The plot of the movie states the story of “an infertile divorcee, Rachel who takes the train to New York regularly for work and watches her old home where she used to live with her husband, who now lives there with his new wife and child.
Rachel shifts her focus to her neighbor couple whom she follows regularly with the satisfaction of their being perfect together.
One day she encounters something bad and woke up the next day, covered in bruises remembering nothing about the night before, and also found out that the female partner of the couple she used to watch was gone missing.
She decides to unfold the series of events that happened during her blackout time and solve the missing girl mystery.”
The Bollywood remake of the original movie starred Parineeti Chopra in the place of Emily Blunt; the plot of the story and even the name of the movie is similar to the original movie.
The Bollywood remake was released on the OTT platform on January 26, 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The movie didn’t do as well as the original movie but also didn’t’; the IMDb rating for the original Hollywood movie starring Emily Blunt scored 6.5/10 whereas the Bollywood remake starring Parineeti Chopra earned 4.5/10.
3. The Fault In Our Stars (2014) – Dil Bechara (2020)
The famous novel turned Hollywood movie, ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, released in the year 2014 starring Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley as the two teens who are dealing with their trying to be a hopeful Cancer patient.
Both the teens fall in love with each other’s habits and love spending time together in such happiness that they almost forgot about their Cancer pain and their minimal chances of survival.
The leading female wants to avoid the feelings but the male declares his love for her with full flare. The movie had a heartbreaking ending yet gave away the message of living one’s life to its fullest.
A similar portrayal has been done in the Bollywood remake of this movie called Dil Bechara released in 2020. The male protagonist was played by Sushant Singh Rajput and Sanjana Sanghi played the female lead. The story is to copy similar to the original movie The Fault In Our Stars.
The remake had a controversial as well as heavy heart release after the mysterious death of the lead actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
The watchlist was enormous not for enjoying the movie but to see the last act of the simple and loved actor Sushant. “Pain demands to be felt”, the quote from the original The Fault In Our Stars, actually had hit the audiences while seeing their favorite actor Sushant perform and realizing that they would never be able to see him grow.
4. Knight And Day (2010) – Bang Bang (2014)
The Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz starring Action Comedy, Knight and Day was released in 2010 showcasing the natural action stunts of Tom Cruise and the incredible beauty and badass combo of Cameron Diaz.
The jaw-dropping stunts performed by Tom Cruise were unbelievable yet believable after all he is ‘The Tom Cruise’, he is handsome, romantic, and even a total badass. The movie collected over $262 million.
Bang Bang, released in 2014, the adaptation of the ‘Knight and Day’, on the other hand also turned many heads and bagged ample appreciation. The exposure was so much so that the trailer got millions of views in less than 20 hours.
Hritik Roshan has done justice with the action sequences and people even compared him with the iconic actor Tom Cruise.
In an interview, Hritik was asked if he thinks he did a good job in the remake as compared to the original, to which he responded that the movie was a little adaptation but not a remake.
It is hard to believe after seeing the exact stunts that Katrina Kaif pulled off sitting on the front of the motorbike and shooting with both hands while Hritik was riding, that Cameron had performed in Knight and Day. Not just this stunt but most of the plots of both the movie were alike.
5. The Italian Job (2003) – Players (2011)
The Italian Job acquired a business of $176 million and was a total hit produced by Paramount.
The lead mastermind character Charlie was played by the veteran Mark Wahlberg. The plot of the movie consists of “an extraordinary heist team that is led by a mastermind, Charlie; a tech genius, an explosive specialist, a smart safe breaker and a badass beauty.
One of the former fake teammates murders the safe breaker and stole all the gold and backstabbed the team. Later on, the leader unites the team again to take the revenge for their partner’s death and retrieve their heist treasure from the deceiver.”
The action, humor, and drama in this movie made this movie one of the highest-grossing movies. The Bollywood adaptation on the contrary isn’t able to woo the audiences. The makers of Players spent a fortune to earn the remake privileges.
Despite expending so much the movie doesn’t collect much. The plot was a complete imitation of the original, the team traits were similar to the original and even the name of the lead mastermind in the remake played by Abhishek Bachchan was the same as the original, ie, Charlie. However, the movie doesn’t fail badly but is not done well too.
6. Stepmom (1998) – We Are Family (2010)
The movie Stepmom was a classic movie from the late ’90s showing scenarios about “a family that is broken yet together after the mutual divorce within the parents of the house, the mother moves out leaving her children with their dad but visits often and still going strong in the life of her children.
The father’s girlfriend who is young and beautiful along with a good heart enters the house and tries to win everyone over but was challenged at every step.
She also takes the challenge and retaliates in her way, but amid all this bitter-sweet chaos, they receive shocking news about the children’s mother’s fatal illness which changes everything and everyone.
The mother teaches the father’s girlfriend the mere details about her family because she knows that she will not be around for her family and they must get along as a family.”
The movie is an emotional joyride with lots of ups and downs. The girlfriend’s character was played by Julia Roberts and the mom’s role is played by Susan Sarandon.
The movie grabbed its audiences by their hearts and made them cry. Similarly, the Bollywood remake of the original was a hefty deal and made with an exact similar storyline line starring Arjun Rampal as the husband, Kajol as his ex-wife, and Kareena Kapoor as Arjun Rampal’s girlfriend, with a house full of three children.
The resemblance between both the movies is uncanny. Sadly, the movie didn’t bag much from the audience and was rarely able to retrieve the invested amount.
7. It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – Dhamaal (2007)
Many of you are familiar with the crazy comedy movie Dhamaal released in 2007 starring the Laughter Kings of Bollywood i.e, Javed Jafferi, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, and Ashish Chaudhary.
Even the big Baba of Bollywood, Sanjay Dutt was seen giving us some strong laughter doses. The plot of the movie starts with “four friends who are good for nothing encounters a fatal accident of a car and tried to help the wounded man but the man died spilling the secret of the hidden treasure that he had placed in someplace under a big ‘W’.
Sanjay Dutt played a frustrated cop who had decided to take the treasure for him, was following the car that crashed and the person who died in the crash was a smuggler.
The four friends decide to find the treasure for themselves. The cop follows the four friends and the friends part ways to find the treasure individually in greed taking different routes and the mad journey full of crazy laughter begins.”
This whole chaotic comedy plot was taken from the Hollywood movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” released in the early ’60s starring Spencer Tracy, Sid Caeser, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney, and other veterans. Dhamaal, the Bollywood remake, entertained the audiences very much.
8. Disclosure (1994) – Aitraaz (2004)
Only the genre of both is a tad bit different; Disclosure released in the mid 90’s used the genre Thriller/Mystery and Aitraaz released in the mid-’20s modified it a little with Thriller/Drama.
C’mon now, just adding some drama in the whole copied plot doesn’t make it any different! Does it? However, Bollywood is known for the drama or masala in almost everything to spice it up.
This same technique was used when Bollywood decided to copy or as they say inspired by the plot of the Hollywood Thriller/Mystery, Disclosure, starring “Michael Douglas as the happily married man and hardworking executive working in a huge tech firm, who was working hard for his promotion and suddenly the blast from his past, Demi Moore as his ex-girlfriend arrives as his new boss and tried to force herself onto him during a personal meeting, the male lead refrain himself from that attempt as he was happily married and had family and doesn’t want to indulge in any type of affair.
This infuriated the new boss and she sued him for sexual harassment on her. Despite being innocent the male lead was accused of the harassment and his career was on trial after that he decides to fight for his pride and after a long and twisted series of events of various mysterious plotting and planning done against him he eventually won the case and proved non-guilty; which derived the message that sexual harassment must not be judged based on mere gender but the with non-biased attitude.”
The Bollywood remake was a lot like the original except for some dramatic changes of the male lead’s wife’s attorneying for his case and some minor other changes. However, the remake earned more likeness on the IMDb platform rather than the original.
9. Unfaithful (2002) – Murder (2004)
The intense erotic thriller movie Murder starring Malaika Arora and Emraan Hashmi in the lead along with Ashmit Patel as the husband was a clear adaptation of the Hollywood romance thriller movie Unfaithful released in 2002.
The plot is that the woman in an insipid marriage bumps into a handsome man and felt intimate desires toward him. Fate had her met with the handsome man and the series of sensual meetings starts and the woman got so indulged in her extramarital affair that she tends to ignore her family.
The sudden change was noticed by her husband and he found out that she is having an affair with another man. After some time the woman realizes her mistake and decides to end her affair but was again caught in the eroticism of her male partner.
While leaving she vows to end her affairs permanently. The husband tries to talk sense in her wife’s male partner and ends up killing him in anger. The woman found out later that her husband had killed the man and tried to destroy the evidence.
She confronts him, and after a fiery discussion they decided to let go of the past and start a new life.”
However, the ending in both the movies is different, in the original, it was portrayed that the guilty husband turns himself to the law, whereas, in the Bollywood adaptation there was loads of drama and twists were added like the Lover was not exactly dead rather he was planning to isolate the women from her husband and kill her husband but ending up being shot by the police.
Some twists were added to the adaptation of the original and of course, the adaptation was crowned to be an erotic presentation with loads of super hit songs.
10. Eye For An Eye (1996) – Dushman (1998)
Both the movies had focused on the female protagonist who wants to take revenge on a psycho rapist and killer who had raped and killed her loved one.
Talking about the similarity between the plot of the original movie and the inspired Bollywood movie, we can say the movie had some strong scenes which are identical but the Bollywood adaptation has tried to enlarge the movie plot with the indulgence of romance and drama.
The movie Eye For An Eye is about “a mother whose daughter has been brutally raped and murdered by a psychotic delivery man; even after getting arrested the killer somehow got away due to rareness of evidence.
The mother was advised to join a support group to cope with her loss but she was unable to avoid the fact that a wild rapist was out in town and some others could fall as his prey just like her daughter.
She decided to take revenge after knowing that one more girl was similarly killed by him and this time he used extra precautions to get him out of trouble.
She trained herself in self-defense and arranged a gun with the help of some of her support group friends. She lures the killer and ultimately killed him making a scenario that seems like the murder was in self-defense.”
This movie inspired the plot of one of the Bollywood movies Dushman released in 1998, where the difference was just that the female lead wanted to revenge for her twin sister who was brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer who was most wanted.
Even after his arrest, he was proved non-guilty as the eyewitness gave the false witness. After which the female lead takes the help of a blind military veteran to help her train to kill the convict and eventually develops feelings for the blind military officer.
The end is similar to the original; the female lead lures the killer into her traps and finally shot him dead.
11. The Hard Way (1991) – Main Khiladi Tu Anari (1994)
The Hard Way released in 1991 and Main Khiladi Tu Anari a Bollywood inspiration of the Hollywood movie shares the similarity in the main plot where a brat actor has pledged to act in a hard-core cop role which is entirely different from the kind of roles he usually does.
With the help of a few influential contacts of his, the actor was set up with a tough cop who is opposite to his personality.
With a dangerous mission of arresting a high-profiled smuggler and killer, both the contrasting personalities have to work together and along the journey, they discover a brotherly bond between them after a series of craziness. At last, they solved the case together as one.”
This is the main gist of the story, however, there was lots of romance, drama, and songs added in the Bollywood representation of the original movie.
Both the movies were almost equally appreciated as per the IMDb rating and likeness of the movies by the audiences. Both the movies were entertaining with action and comedy.
12. On The Waterfront (1954) – Ghulam (1998)
We had admired Aamir Khan’s Ghulam so much for the kind of story he has shown with an utmost perfectionism of his role of aimless and wanderlust goon; but little that we know that it was a clear adaptation of the 50’s classic movie On The Waterfront released in 1954 starring the iconic Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb etc.
Bollywood’s representation of the Hollywood enigmatic film On The Waterfront was not up to the mark, however, the role of Aamir Khan was highly appreciated.
The story revolves around an ex-fighter who used to be aimless and eventually stands against the exploitation of the big mafia under which his brother works and also his brother as he is also an oppressor. During his carefree wanders and ultimate fight for the righteousness, he finds the love of her life.”
The original piece is considered an iconic hit even now, and Ghulam also bagged many critical praises yet if we come to compare both the films it will be futile as the 50s classic had no comparison to any of its remakes.
Nevertheless, Ghulam is considered one of the strongest movies of Aamir Khan’s career but the fighting scenes were seen as bogus. The IMDb rating of the original masterpiece is 8.1/10, whereas, the IMDb rating of the original inspired movie is 7.2/10. The ratings show the likeness of the movie even after some of the desperate action sequences.
13. Cavite (2005) – Aamir (2008)
Aamir is exactly the Bollywood representation of the Hollywood movie Cavite released in 2005.
Not just the plot but the whole narration of the movie is absolutely the same, yet the difference in the IMDb rating as the original movie Cavite got 6.10/10 whereas, the Bollywood representation, Aamir bagged 7.6/10 as IMDb rating.
The original was led by “Ian Gamazon, a man who happens to return to his native country for a family affair but is caught in a terrifying circumstance of terrorism. A group of terrorists had narrowed him down and held his family hostage to complete one of their fatal vendettas of mass killing.
The unspeakable terror of losing his family trails him down the path as the terrorist group has assigned him against his will.”
The Bollywood portrayal of this movie was even more intense and lots of emotions as well as messages were conveyed through the film. The lead role of Aamir was played by Rajeev Khandelwal who plays a Muslim doctor returning to his native place India, when he arrived he found himself in the grip of a Muslim terrorist group who were forcing him to complete their task in do something for their religion being a Muslim or else they will kill his family.
He agreed to their terms but keeps on trying to flop their plan which he eventually does while saving a bus full of innocents from the bomb blast which was planted through him by the terrorist organization and ultimately sacrificing his life to save others.
The similarity is clear yet the intensity of the Bollywood remake was higher.
14. Patch Adams (1998) – Munna Bhai M.b.b.s (2003)
Yes! You read it right. The iconic Bollywood film Munna Bhai M.B.B.S is a tad bit adaptation of the late 90’s movie Patch Adams.
The common ground in both the movies is that both the male protagonist sees a different way of healing people rather than gloomy tests, medicines, and stuff.
They figure out that humor can be used to heal many patients who lost had lost their will to live. Both the male lead tends to show new angles on their patients and the various persons in need in life.
Patch Adams deals with the male protagonist who was fed up with his life and was suicidal so he admits himself to a psychic hospital where he helps some of his co-patients with humor and found a purpose to carry it on a wider level by enrolling himself as one of the eldest medical students.
His patterns were questioned by the dean and other doctors but he carried on and proved himself.” A similar track was the base of the Bollywood portrayal of Munna Bhai, except for his joining as a medical student by forgery to avenge his father’s insult from the dean of the college.
He started focusing on destroying the dean but along the way sub-consciously became a doctor who treats his patients with humor, empathy, and various crazy but entertaining ways.
Some addition of romance, drama, and masala is a must in the Bollywood movies other than that both the movie shares almost the same grounds.
15. Hitch (2005) – Partner (2007)
The exact similar storyline, similar plot and equally entertaining; Partner released in 2007 was a total adaptation of the Hollywood hit Hitch released in 2005 starring Will Smith as the expert on wooing a woman who professionally guides the underdog men to win the women of their dreams; until he falls for one and caught up in a frame of allegations.
The Bollywood portrayal of this movie is Partner where Salman Khan is playing the character same as Will Smith, who happens to be caught in a turmoil of allegations from his client turned best friend and the love of his life.
Both the movie shows the stud yet gentlemen side of the male protagonist. Both the movies had bagged admiration and had highly entertained the audiences with the witty punch lines, comical representation of tense situations, and entirely refreshing.
Conclusion
Though there are ample movies that are copied, adapted, and inspired by Hollywood movies or other language movies yet some of the remakes are even more entertaining than the original ones.
That may be my outlook; however, some portrayals are so cringey to watch that I sometimes wonder how the makers being so knowledgeable and experienced could do something as disastrous as that.
Well, looking at the bright side, from this blog you got to know so many unknown facts about some of the most commonly watched Bollywood movies, and also we got a list of Hollywood movies that we can surely say will entertain us.